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Ad Infernum Lux
Ad Infernum Lux is a band of heroes known through some significant events in the Kingdom of Kinsan and the Free Cities of the south. Humble Beginnings The group was firstly brough together by Dama Isabella Revnar, who needed some mercenaries to protect a merchant from his trip from Moonlake to Glade, because in that period there were being set ambushes from some members of the Silverleaves' gang. Isabella got her nephew Soren Revnar to lead the group in order to get him out to the world and gain experience. Next to him, she ordered Mokujin, the only Warforged the Revnar Dynasty had in their posession to protect Soren. They were joined by Milinaeus Yoentumak, who had just came back from succesfully cleaning the poisoned waterstream of Border town. Two young drifters, Jacob Xarlo - a mysterious young human wizard - and Frug Berenin - a cursed Pelor cleric also joined the team. The plan was for them to be the bait for the thieves while Dama Isabella and her Moonlake soldiers would follow nearby to capture them. Sometime during their travel to Glade, the thieves did attack and the plan was executed perfectly. The thieves were captured and it was revealed that they were wearing Moonlake guard armor and the Silverleaves mark. They were also found to have kidnapped a young woman that the group found in a nearby abandoned establishment. Isabella returned the culprits to Moonlake and the group continued their trip to Glade, in order to make sure no more attacks would occur to the merchant. Investigation in Glade Upon succesfully reaching Glade, the group tried to spent its days individually, trying to find out more about the Silverleaves who were believed to be behind the attacks. Soren Revnar, Jacob Xarlo and Milinaeus Yoentumak managed to talk to the leader of the group named Silver, with the last actually joining the gang from that day on. Silverleaves were indeed an outlaw gang, who had infuelnce over a significat part of the city, selling protection to businesses and were connected to assaults, murders, thievery and the black market in the city. There they found out that the thieves were impostors and not real members of the Silverleaves gang. The evidence behind that was that the mark given to any official member of the gang is actually imbued in magic, writting the name of the member linked to each one. The ones found on the thieves were marks of other official members who either had lost them or were dead. The group, now along with the SIlverleaves leader, tried to now find out who was behind the attacks and why he tried to frame the Silverleaves for them. The first to be investigated were a rivaling gang named Filth, a gang consisting of poor and homeless people that usually met in the sewers of Glade. The members of the team, still acting independently from one another, investigated the Filth. Soren joined their ranks and eventually became intimate with one of their members, Karina Sale. The Filth were a weird gang, mainly consisting of the poor and the homeless of the city and with the leadership all being necropolitans, dressed up as clowns and they held festivals in a specific part of the sewers. Attack of the Demons The party was still in Glade, when a huge attack commenced. Many demon-like creatures appeared seemingly out of nowhere, originating from the area of the slums - the same area where the Filth have their festivals. The city guards blocked the streets leading to the rest of the city, but they did not seem to have orders to proceed with defeating the demons. Their attitude enraged the party who rushed inside the slums to clean up the area from the monsters. The same response came from the Silverleaves and some Heironeous guards, so the three groups found themselves fighting side by side until they reached a point deep inside the slums. There Soren led the way helping the civilians escape through the sewers. In the area was flooded with monsters and the heroes found a squad of the city guards, wearing the sigils of Hextor, also fighting the demons there. The leader of the squad was clad in black armor and weilded a flaming flail. There they were ambushed by a witch who was attacking them with a variety of spells from a rooftop. The witch focused her spells at the Hextorites, managing to kill all but their leader. The Hextorite knight became enraged, and rushed after her. The other kept pressing after him, while the abominations were grewing larger in numbers. The team together with the Silverleaves reached a square in the center of the slums where they encountered a massive portal which spew out all the monsters. Around it there were cultists chanting, keeping the portal open. The team along with the Silverleaves instantly attacked the cultists to prevent the summoning of more demons and particularly one Marilith that was about to cross over. Killing the cultists stopped the summoning and closed the portal shut. In the aftermath of the battle, the cultists who were apprehended were led for interogation and then to the gallows. In was revealed that they were under some kind of spell, unaware of had they had done but the gallows took their head. The team then banded together in order to go and talk to the leader of the Filth, a weird necropolitan who called himself Jester and was dressed as a clown. The Filth had taken all the survivors from the battle and gave them shelter. They also met another one of their members, a goliath, Perdition, along with Karina Sale and Rose Icelilly. Jester showed a particular interest in Mokujin, pitting Perdition to fight him. Mokujin lost the fight, but the Jester's interest towards his mechanical body did not ease. The team left the Filth with no real new information. The next day, the governor of Glade, Baron Flint, made a public speech to the people of the city, blaming everything to a captain in charge of his city guard, Matthew Stabb - the Hextorite knight with the black armor and the flaming flail, and prepared him for the gallows. From the croud, Silver and Soren appeared before him trying to persuade him not to kill the captain, arguing about his help in the battle against the monstrocities with details and facts. Governor Flint showed no signs of backing away from his decision, but Soren managed to persuade him to exile the captain for life from Glade, stripping him from all his ranks and for him to be brought to Moonlake by Soren. Flint also congratulated Silver for the immediate response and defeat of the monsters reluctantly after seeing the people hailing Silver as a hero. Thristledown & The Hobgoblins After succesfully saving the life of Matthew Stabb, the party started their trip back to Moonlake, in order to attend to the celebrations for the birthday of the Devil Duke, James Revnar. The team decided that in order to safelly leave the city, they had to split up. Milinaeus was travelling as a bodyguard of Lily Raulnor, Lily the Bard, a famous singer that was part of Silverleaves who was visiting Moonlake to participate in the celebrations of the Duke's birthday along with her entourage, while the other were travelling back with Matthew Stabb. On their way back, just hours outside Thristledown, the team saw a signaling fire coming from a nearby sentry tower of Moonlake. The team went in to investigate and saw the tower ablaze, being attacked by some squad of Hobgoblins wearing demonic masks. The team charged in the fight, with Soren taking charge of ordering the Moonlake soldiers and the others fighting off the goblins. Moments later, and after the battle seemed lost from the overwhelming numbers of the hobgoblins, reinforcements from Thristledown came. Leading the cavalry was the Duke of Thristledown, Edgar Revnar. After they succesfully fought off the goblins, the team decided to head along with the Duke back to Thristledown, where Duke Edgar requested their help to clean up the hobgoblin attacks. Soren, Frug, Jacob, Mokujin and Matthew spent the night in Thristledown while Milinaeus continued ahead to Moonlake for the celebrations along with Lily's entourage. On their way, Lily's group was attacked by some thugs. They were defeated quickly and wouldn't back off, and Milinaeus hanged their leader from a nearby tree, revealinghis silver leaf mark, and left one thug go back to sent the message to the rest of his gang. A few hours later, the rest were ambushed by some gnolls who they quickly fought off. Moonlake & the Devil Duke's Birthday Celebrations The city of Moonlake was flooded with people from all over the Kingdom, to celebrate the birthday of the Devil Duke. The party participated in the competitions with Milinaeus winning the archery contest after Soren and Milinaeus came first and second in the footrace. At the end of the fair, the party signed an adventurers' team contract with the Duke, thus taking on the name of Ad Infernum Lux. The Siege of the Hobgoblin Fortress As an official adventuring party, they returned to Thristledown to take upon the mission of hunting down the Hobgoblins who were attacking the region, by the Duke, Edgar Revnar. On their way though, thugs had sent up an ambush for them. It was members of the same team the Silverleaves group with Milinaeus had defeated some days ago and the wanted payback for the hanging of one of their teammates. The fight started quickly, but Ad Infernum Lux were rappidly being overwhelmed. The thugs' leader demanded to have Milinaeus for a payback and Milinaeus agreed despite the fact that the rest of his team was ready to fight them to the end. He walked towards the thugs' leader and received a beating that left him almost unconcious while his friends could not do anything but watch the humilitiation. After the beating satisfied the thugs, they left without any more demands. After getting all necessary information from the Duke and accepting the mission the team left for the base of operations of the Hobgoblins, an old fortress at the borders between Moonlake and Glade. The party overheard a couple of Ogres, arguing over a body of a hobgoblin. Wanting to capture the hobgoblin for interogation and unsure of the situation, they attacked the ogres, which they defeated easily. Seconds later 3 hobgoblins who were laying hidden nearby attacked them, but they were also quickly defeated. The team started interogating the hobgoblin and it was revealed that most of his clan had started working under a human noble, and he was considered a traitor by his people. His father was the smith of the fortress and he was now a prisoner of the rest of the hobgoblins. After a long conversation, the hobgoblin agreed to assist the party on their plan to attack the fortress, giving them all nessecary information. At the same night a couple of wood elves and three forest gnomes also appeared before the group and aggreed to help with the attack. Next day, Milinaeus scouted ahead and located the fortress, while the rest of the party - now numbering 11 people - stayed hidden. Jacob used his familiar to scout the numbers and outline of the fortress and he located a noble don in blue velvet fine clothes ordering the hobgoblins around. Milinaeus silently approached the fortress and took place to ambush the guards along the watchtowers of the gate, while the others hid to wait for the patrol to appear. With an exceptional coordination, Milinaeus attacked the guards on the walls while the rest attacked the hobgoblin patrol. While the team moved on to fight the second patrol unit, Milinaeus tried to kill the lookout that was about to hit the bell to alert the rest of the hobgoblin army, who was inside the watchtower. After failing to kill him in time, the fortress was now in full alert, with a main body of the army getting ready to leave the fortress and attack the party. Milinaeus decided to use his magic ability to leep on the 15-feet high wall of the fortress and very fast managed to take out the hobgoblins in charge of opening the gate, thus making impossible for the main army to go out to fight. That gave enough time to the rest of his friends to clean up on the outside, while Milinaeus was fighting whoever was trying to come close to the levers of the gate. Moments later though, he rapidly became overwhelm by the enemy guards, and while Jacob came to his aid, climbing the wall, Milinaeus jumped off to the outside of the walls. Now hobgoblins were opening the gate and the army ran outside. Soren aggreed on a duel with their leader, but the duel was interrupted by Mokujin. While the battle on the ground was fierce, up on the walls Jacob was reunited again with Milinaeus and they were now facing off against a powerful hobgoblin spellcaster. Battle was quickly won though when Frug summoned a mighty weapon of magic light, the weapon of her God, Pelor, that began crushing the Hobgoblins, while Jacob and Milinaeus were defeating the wizard. In the aftermath, the party learned that the fortress had an old temple of Pelor inside, which the hobgoblins had desecrated. Also the smith of the fortress was found and reunited with his son. The smith was revealed to be a Kensai, just like Soren. All of the 11 members of this cabal had survived while some enemy hobgoblins had surrendered and a few -along with the human noble- had escaped through some sewer system that exists inside the fortress. Jacob & The Flames of Despair The next day, while Frug started working on restoring the temple of Pelor in the fortress and Mokujin along with the smith and his son was bringing order back to its , Jacob, Milinaeus and Soren went out for a reconnaissance survey of the surrounding area. Upon reaching a plateau inside the forest, the three of them were attacked by some ground dwelling monsters and amidst the fight Jacob decided to use his high level fire spell, Fireball. That move eventually proved to be a mistake, with the flames quickly spreading to the forest. That decision started a chained reaction of rivalry between the members of Ad Infernum Lux. While the three members were trying to escape the raging flames, Milinaeus attacked Jacob with two of his arrows, bringing him to his knees, as a punishment for his actions. Soren rushed to save him, carrying him out of the expanding fires. When the trio realized that the fire was expanding so fast that the whole forest was in danger and along with the fact that it was a home to a clan of wood elves, Milinaeus and Soren independently turned around and started trying to take out the fire. The wood elves residing the area also rushed to extinguish the fire, trying to protect their homes. Milinaeus assisted them for hours till he fell on the spot, exhausted. Soren also helped with extinguishing the fire and then lead all the wood elves to safety at the fortress. Back at the fortress, the team had to resolve their conflict. Soren began passing judgement to both Jacob and Milinaeus. After a long and high-tense conversation, the team decided as a penalty for Milinaeus to act as Jacob's bodyguard and for Jacob to talk to Milinaeus for every major decision he had to make from that point onward. They also voted for Soren to be the leader of Ad Infernum Lux. Answers beneath the Fortress The party, still trying to overcome their inner conflict, decided it was time to explore the underground tunnels which were pressumably used by the noble to flee the battle two days ago. They left the fortress, which now housed the surrendered Hobgoblins and the Wood Elves, for Mokujin and the Hobgoblin smith with his son, to handle. The underground proved to be a large, seemingly endless conjuctions of caves, expanding to every direction. The passages were obfuscated and full of mushrooms. The party kept moving south-east, through a tunnel that seemed to be the main one. They encountered many different foul creatures until they reached an iron portcullis. There they were greeted by a disembodied voice that asked them if they were soldiers or not. Their answer was no, and the gate opened. Jacob theorized that this was maybe a tunnel used for civilian evacuation during the War with the Orcs. Moments later, another iron gate appeared before them. This time another disembodied voice gave them a riddle, “I can be bought or gained what am I”. The party responded with "Trust" and then the voice spoke again, announcing that all of them except one, would have a slow and painful death. At that moment, the roof started to slowly descend towards the party. Jacob quickly realized that the mechanism behind the trap was not working properly, spotting a corner of the room where the roof would not touch the floor, so they all quickly squeezed there waiting patienly. Moments later the room retracted again and the door opened, revealing a number of Hextor guards, alike those in Glade. A fierce battle commenced instantly and although the captain seemed a skilled knight, the guards were defeated as fast as they appeared. Current members : * Soren Revnar * Milinaeus Yoentumak * Jacob Xarlo * Frug Berenin * Alura Mandrake * Kulkan Recurring members : * Bo Former members : * Kasvander Verhoeven * Mokujin Category:Group